January 22, 2019

I lost my hat!

Have you ever lost a favorite hat or scarf, or one of your favorite pair of winter gloves? Then you know how sad I was to realize this weekend I had lost my favorite soft knit winter hat. This is the hat that makes me look like an insane grandmother hedgehog with lavender spikes sticking out of her head. I bought the hat in a street market in Lithuania in  the fall of 2011, one of those whim purchases when you are traveling. It was my second trip after Bill’s death.

That hat became my winter favorite go-to hat because it could scrunch up into my pocket and was warm and cozy and made me feel pretty/silly.

I wore it to President Obama’s second inauguration. I wore it to the First and Second and Third Women’s Marches in Washington DC. I wore it any number of times in winter outside the NRA Headquarters in Fairfax while witnessing for the lives of those little children lost at Sandy Hook. I wore it by the Bell Tower outside the capitol in Richmond for vigils against gun violence on Martin Luther King’ s Day. And I wore it for any number of ordinary days for eight years in the winter.

But last Saturday, on my way home from the Third Women’s March in DC, I stopped for a late lunch, not having had anything to eat all day. I pulled off my hat and coat and scarf in the restaurant, and forgot to pick up my hat when I left.

It was two days before I realized the loss, and another two days before I could return to the restaurant. I was not very optimistic when I entered the Italian restaurant today, a new one in the shopping strip. It was mid-day and the few staff seemed to be working on a new round of pizzas. When I asked about lost and found, one of the staff fumbled underneath the counter and brought out two hats, one a dark baseball cap and one my hat. My soft funny funky purple spiky cozy silly grandmother hat. I clapped and cheered and took my cap from the smiling guy. All the staff beamed.

I am not sure about the moral of this story. Maybe we should not place too much value in material things. Maybe any hat can warm one’s head. Maybe  we should place faith in the folks in a restaurant to hold onto to lost things.

Maybe we should keep faith that the lost can be found, that the rough ways will be made smooth, and that all manner of things may be made well by our work. And that all will be well.